


Ring of Fire

by ddespair



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4949635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddespair/pseuds/ddespair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Dusk Till Dawn AU. Because one guy that looks like Harvey Keitel wandering around Mexico is just not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring of Fire

  
  
  
  


The lights first appeared on the horizon about an hour and a half out of Juarez, no traffic. Twenty minutes later, Larry could tell it was a building, not a mirage the way his fatigued eyes had originally chosen to interpret it. Across the flat desert landscape, it seemed to be quite close, but it was at least another hour before he reached it.

It was beyond gaudy, like an electric carnival straight out of hell. In an area in front of it that had been worn into a parking lot over time, trucks and bikes were lined up, engines revving, drivers yelling at each other.

He’d heard urban legends about this place and had been curious. Anyway, it wasn’t out of his way, he’d lamely rationalized on the way over. Now that he was here, the scene felt positively grotesque, but a burning curiosity and thirst for liquor lead him to pull the light truck he was driving into the lot. The bouncer looked him up and down with an evil eye as he walked up the stairs to the entrance, but made no comment.

The interior was an equal howling mess to the inside, with its one distinct difference being all manner of mostly naked boys in a variety of ridiculous costumes that left little to the imagination. It’d make for a funny story later, Larry figured. After a wary survey of the tables and the men both attending to and dancing atop them, however, he made a beeline for the bar instead. One drink, ten minutes—that’d be enough.

The sandy-haired guy tending bar looked to be in his late twenties, maybe a well-preserved early thirties. His shirt was half-open, sleeves rolled up so that the tattoo wrapped around his right bicep showed. A conservative look compared to the other guys working the joint. He smiled when he saw Larry approach the bar. “You sure look uncomfortable.”

Larry chuckled. “Not sure why I’m surprised, when rumor has it this is the wildest gay bar in Mexico.”

“Something to take the edge off?” He ordered a bourbon, neat, and waved the kid off when he tried to make change for the twenty. “Not your scene? You get dragged here by a queer buddy?”

The gently probing nature of the question wasn’t lost on its recipient. “Don’t get me wrong, I like guys, but this is all too much. I stopped by out of curiosity, but now that I’m here I guess I’m realizing I’m too old for this shit.”

“Nah, you’re not too old. Real problem’s most of the dancers are bitches and divas.” He rolled his eyes in an obvious gesture of disgust.

Larry’s heart wasn’t sure if it wanted to sink or rise. “Been there, done that?”

His companion gave him an embarrassed little shrug. “Once. Once was enough. Should’ve known better than to shit where I eat, especially when I work in… well…” he made a gesture indicating the premises with both arms. Larry’s eyes scanned the dancers along the walls. “Hey, c’mon,” the bartender protested, color rising in his pale skin. “Don’t do that, I ain’t gonna tell you who.” Shit, Larry’s brain said as his stomach flip flopped.

The weathered thief laughed, and threw his hands up. “Alright, alright, I won’t ask.”

“Changing the subject…” the bartender leaned forward on his elbows on the bar. 

“What _is_  your vice then, if not our fabulous display of hedonistic homosexuality, here to service your basest desires from dusk till dawn?” He put on a silly little voice, an attempt at sounding like a radio announcer.

_Well, I rob people, usually at gunpoint. Y’know, banks, jewelers, casinos…_

“Sports betting.” Larry chose a lesser sin.

“Yeah?” His eyebrows raised excitedly. “Me and the some of the guys here have a fantasy football league. I did pretty bad last year, but I swear to god half the guys on my lineup got injured. You bet on football?”

“More baseball than anything.” The noise of the bar seemed to be gradually drifting further away.

“All-American boy, huh? Bettin’ on baseball and drinkin’ bourbon in Mexico instead of tequila. Almost makes me miss the States. Came for spring break almost ten years ago and kinda just never left. ” The young man surveyed Larry from below his sleepy-lidded eyes and mess of blond lashes.

But before Larry could respond, someone else called an order from the other end of the bar. The bartender signaled them back with one hand. Larry allowed himself a second to admire as the boy brushed an errant strand of hair away.  He became aware of how dry his throat felt and took a gulp of bourbon as the bartender prepared the ordered drink.

More people were filtering in, and after that order was done one leather harness-clad waiter, then another, shouted drink orders to the bar. Larry’s bartender friend turned to him with an apologetic look as he opened beer bottles. “Sorry, man. But hey, give me maybe fifteen minutes? I’m due for break and I can buy you a drink.”

Larry nodded his agreement, nerves thrumming with nervous energy, and the young man flashed him another smile. “Cool. Name’s Freddy, by the way.”

“Larry.” They briefly shook hands before Freddy turned back to his work.

Fifteen minutes felt like quite a while with nothing to do but sit there, drink his drink, and try not to look over at the bartender too much. But fifteen minutes later, almost to the dot, Larry saw Freddy grab another bartender by the arm. He couldn’t make out the words but could hear the angry tones indicating some sort of argument that ended with Freddy pounding the bar top with one fist and grabbing something from under the bar before stalking off. He disappeared into the crowd and reappeared by Larry’s seat a minute later.

“Let’s get out of here, my coworker’s being a real dick about filling in for me,” he said a little breathlessly. “Follow me.”

Freddy led Larry, winding through a sea of tables, to the back of the bar, past a set of double doors to a hall of rounded doorways, each covered with heavy velvet curtains. His new bartender friend picked the last room the last room on the left and held open the curtain for him with one hand, the other one occupied by a bottle of something green. Larry obligingly sat on a garish purple loveseat when gesture indicated that he should. The curtain came back down and Freddy set the bottle on the glass coffee table in front of the sofa.

Freddy sighed contentedly. “Now we can talk without havin’ to deal with all the bullshit out there,” with a nod in the offending direction. “And the other benefit to the champagne room is…” He rummaged in the drink trolley sitting in the back corner. “…champagne,” he announced upon producing a bottle of Cristal.

“Is it okay for us to be in here and drinkin’ that?”

“Doesn’t start to get busy in here till later at night, should give us some time. We’ll have to leave if the other rooms fill up and they need this one,” he warned Larry while twisting off the cage. “As for this—“ he was interrupted by the pop of the cork. “—well, fuck ‘em.”

Into a pair of champagne flutes, the bartender first poured some of the mysterious green liquid, then the champagne. Larry took his glass from the kid and regarded its contents suspiciously. “What’s the green stuff?”

Freddy perched on the arm of the love seat next to him instead of on the other seat and grinned. “Just drink it. All at once now, c’mon.”

Shades of childhood truth-or-dare excitement coursed through Larry and he complied, tilting his head back and downing the flute’s contents. The champagne bubbles and a rush of something menthol and anise and very very green assaulted his sinuses right up into his brain, and his throat burned from the alcohol and a mixture of both sickly sweet and goosebump-inducing bitter.  “Christ!” Larry exclaimed, rubbing his mouth as though it would rid him of the taste. “The fuck is that?”

Freddy laughed at his reaction, eyes glittering. “From my personal stash—chartreuse.  The only liqueur so good they named a color after it.”

In a flash and without warning, the younger man’s hand were on Larry’s face, legs in his lap, and their mouths were together. The kiss was all licorice and carbonation, hot tongues with grassy green god-knows-what from the chartreuse. Larry’s mind whited out, and he came out of it lightheaded. He wondered if this were some sort of drug-induced fever dream, like the one time he made the mistake of trying peyote, but better, so much better. The kid was taking a swig of champagne straight out the bottle, and it couldn’t possibly be real, yet Freddy’s lips were against his own again, he could feel them, and the champagne from his mouth…

After they broke apart again, all Larry felt capable of doing was breathe heavily, trying to pump oxygen into his brain, as it seemed to desperately require more, and stare glassy-eyed at Freddy. Suddenly self-conscious, the bartender wiped the champagne from his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a little laugh. “I always wanted to try that. How was it?”

The older man couldn’t find the words for a response and roughly pulled Freddy into his lap instead. Freddy chuckled lightly, his arms circling Larry’s back, and after that the last sound Larry heard was a hissing, like steam escaping a kettle, before the fangs sank into his neck.

\--

Freddy was still curled up in Larry’s lap on the couch, thoughtfully sipping from the bottle of Cristal, when one of the strippers lifted the curtain much later.

“What the fuck are you still doing here?” hissed the indignant dancer. “I got a customer! Go throw that empty meatbag out already. Y’know what, while you’re at it, why don’t you just go throw yourself in the trash too!?”

Freddy didn’t seem to pick up on his associate’s ire and dreamily leaned his head against Larry’s shoulder. “I think I fucked up, man, I wanted to keep this one. You think I should’ve turned him?”

“Boo fucking hoo. Get the fuck out now.”

With a remorseful little sigh, Freddy slung the body over his shoulders and left.

 

**Author's Note:**

> No matter what a stripper tells you, there's no sex in the champagne room. None. Oh, there's champagne in the champagne room. But you don't want champagne, you want sex. And there's NO sex... in the champagne room.
> 
> (Also sorry for the Death Proof quote. But actually I don't know if I'm really that sorry, Death Proof is kinda underrated.)


End file.
